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A new report from the influential World Economic Forum sees Denmark join its four Nordic neighbours as a global leader in gender equality.

Denmark is the fifth best country in the world for gender equality according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap 2014 report. Moving up from eighth to fifth place, Denmark made it an across-the-board sweep by the Nordic nations, with Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden taking the top four spots.

“With no one country having closed its overall gender gap, Nordic nations remain the most gender-equal societies in the world. Last year’s leading four nations – Iceland (1), Finland (2), Norway (3) and Sweden (4) – are joined by Denmark, which climbs from eighth place to fifth,” the World Economic Forum wrote in a press release.

While the Nordic countries retained their grip on the top spots, the rest of the top ten saw more changes.

“Elsewhere in the top 10 there is considerable movement, with Nicaragua climbing four places to sixth, Rwanda entering the index for the first time at seventh, Ireland falling to eighth, the Philippines declining four places to ninth and Belgium climbing one place to tenth,” the World Economic Forum wrote.

The Global Gender Gap 2014 aims to understand whether countries are distributing their resources and opportunities equitably between women and men, irrespective of their overall income levels.

It measures the size of the gender inequality gap in economic participation and opportunity (such as in salaries and leadership), education, political empowerment, and health and survival in terms of life expectancy and sex ratio.

Denmark ranked number one in the education attainment category, with full equality in literacy rates and enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

The nation performed significantly worse in the health and survival category, coming in at number 65.

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Since the first report in 2006, Denmark has ranked consistently in the top ten and has dominated the economic participation category.

Seen globally, gender equality has narrowed only fractionally in the last nine years. At the current pace, the World Economic Forum’s report noted that women "will have to wait a further 81 years for gender parity in the workplace".